Simple Gestures
by LianneZ4
Summary: She made the sensible choice at the Empire State Building and turned him down. But then Neal reaches out to her and Sara wonders if they could have a future together… Until that phonecall. Spoilers for season 6.
1. Part I

**SIMPLE GESTURES**

 **Summary:** **She made the sensible choice at the Empire State Building and turned him down. But then Neal reaches out to her and Sara wonders if they could have a future together… Until that phonecall. Spoilers for Season 6.  
**

 _ **A/N:**_ _This story was written for the wc-women-fest Mini-Fest; it's been beta-ed by sapphire2309 and the cover art was made by kanarek13 from livejournal. Thank you both :)_

* * *

 **Part I**

When they're finally alone, Neal looks at her with a silent question. _'Do you want to keep it?'_

Sara gives the ring back. It belongs to June, and this isn't the right time – she's going to London, Neal is still serving his sentence, who knows what will be in eighteen months? Neal shrugs it off, no big deal, and they joke about 'Conrad' and 'Connie' until they're both laughing again.

She wants to say yes so badly her chest hurts.

But it's a con. And maybe it turned real along the way, maybe Neal really meant it – she knows he means it _now_ – but it's still a fake, and Sara doesn't want to settle for that. She really shouldn't have to.

It might be that behind her rational facade is a piece of a foolish, stubborn romantic who wants her prince to sweep her off her feet. More likely, she's just pissed off that Neal didn't think to do this right.

Whatever the reason, the end result is still the same.

' _To another time and place, to another us.'_

Neal hides his disappointment behind a mask, they say goodbye with a kiss and she hurries off to catch her plane.

o - o - o

She's happier in London than she ever expected she'd be.

Time flies, and before Sara notices, it's been five months since she came to England. She's good at the new job and results soon follow – the branch has never been more successful than since she took over. Things are great at Sterling&Bosch, but even more importantly, _she_ thrives in London. She's reaching out, making new friends, creating a life outside of work that doesn't involve Neal. She needed this even though she didn't know it, and even missing him can't make her regret the choice she made.

They exchange emails and the occasional postcard or a phone call. Sara tells herself it's enough. She loves Neal, she can admit that much, but being in London is making her happy, and she's always known she couldn't have it all. There's a chance that things might be different in fourteen months, but given their history, it's not too likely. After all, they never made any promises to each other.

The day she recovers a bunch of jewelry, Sara catalogues every piece easily enough until she comes to two engagement rings. She pauses at them and feels her heart ache a bit – and she's annoyed with herself, because she's read between the lines of Neal's last few messages and knows that he has moved on. She bites her lip, returns the box and goes back to chasing bad guys.

She's not going to waste her life thinking of might-have-beens.

o - o - o

" _Hey, Repo. How are you doing?"_

Sara isn't sure she's heard right. " _Caffrey?_ I thought you were kidnapped!"

She can almost hear Neal's frown. _"What? Who told you?"_

"Someone from the old office – Neal, are you all right?"

" _Yeah, I got away… I'm okay, I swear. Honestly, the whole thing lasted less than two days, I'm surprised you've even heard."_

Sara breathes out in relief. "Well, apparently that's one of the perks of living on a different continent – you only get half the news. So what happened?"

" _Well, it's kind of a long story…"_

"Oh come on, Caffrey. Spill."

" _They wanted me to get something, so … Listen, can we not talk about that today?"_

Sara blinks. "Neal Caffrey speechless. I never thought I'd see the day."

He draws in a sharp breath. _"Sara –"_

"No, I'm sorry, it just – surprised me." Belatedly, Sara kicks herself. Either he'll tell her on his own time, or he won't – knowing Caffrey, the latter is a real possibility; but he rarely makes a honest request like that. The least she can do is respect it – for now at least.

" _So, do you want to tell me how you've been?"_ asks Neal with a hint of smile.

The phone call lasts over an hour, and it becomes the first in the line of many. Over the following weeks, the wedge that has been drawn between them starts to shrink, and they're growing closer to each other despite the ocean that separates them.

o - o - o

Apparently there's a whole story about an ex-MI5 assassin and a diamond; Neal promises to tell it to her when they see each other in person. She likes the sound of that.

o - o - o

Sara is pretty good at getting what she wants. She lives with her feet on the ground, so she knows not to reach for the impossible. The rest of the things, she chases with her baton and her brain and almost always succeeds. She's not sentimental and she doesn't live her life with regrets.

Reaching for the sun and getting burned, jumping without looking and breaking her neck, mourning the opportunities lost. She never used to do these things, yet somehow, Caffrey has always been good at bringing out this side of her. Bastard.

He also made her life more exciting and fun.

It is another one of his phone calls that does it – Neal had told her about Keller being in town, and she didn't realize how worried she'd been since until he calls and it's so _good_ to hear his voice that Sara smiles in relief. Suddenly the city is more beautiful than ever, the sunshine is brighter, the Thames River is sparkling…

' _The river is sparkling?'_ Wow. She's got it bad.

Sara giggles as she walks through the street. A few people turn around to look at her. She smiles at them and adds a bit of skip to her step…

Caffrey pisses her off sometimes, but he does make her life better.

Friends, great job, fulfillment – she has it all in London. And maybe that's why at some point after Neal's kidnapping, Sara goes to a jewelry shop and looks at engagement rings. She finally picks two simple golden bands with no embellishments or stones. She pays for them, collects the small box and places it at the bottom of her purse. Once she gets home, she puts it at the back of her socks drawer and leaves it there as a silent promise to herself.

Because this time, she is not afraid to reach for the stars, and it's Neal who has taught her that. Sara knows that it will be a while before they see each other, and though Neal has hinted at an early release, he is still eight months away from the official end of his sentence. Even then, he might turn her down. But although nothing is certain, she knows that she loves Neal, and the only thing she regrets about leaving New York is that they didn't even give a long-distance relationship a shot.

They have already wasted too many opportunities. This time, Sara is finally ready to give them a chance.

o - o - o

 _Until she gets another phone-call – from Peter – and this time it changes everything._

o - o - o

 _It has been three days and she didn't know._

They have an important meeting that day, and she cancels it without a thought, because she's the boss and she can. She leaves the office just after one p.m. – she hasn't left before half past four since she came to London, but today she can't stay there for another minute – she takes the cab home and almost forgets to pay the driver; then ten minutes later she changes her mind and goes out again, because suddenly her apartment is suffocating. She takes the subway and gets off three stations later; she walks for a while, barely aware where she's heading – she stops at this dirty local shop and buys a bottle of vodka – and then she leaves it behind at a park a few streets later, because nothing can wash away the pain and it would be cheap to even pretend.

She goes back home.

There is a bottle of wine in her fridge. Sara opens it and finds a glass. There are people she could call; friends who are probably concerned for her, but she was never good at letting others in and suddenly it's like everything about London has been a lie and she is back there where she had been after Emily left.

It's not a good bottle – Sara vaguely recalls a friend bringing it a while back there when they visited – but that's not a problem tonight. She drinks in silence, a glass after another until the bottle is empty and she stumbles and falls on her way to the kitchen sink – she should have taken her heels off. There are shreds of glass everywhere; crimson stains on the floor that are just red wine, but that could just as well be blood – they shot him in the chest, Peter said, and Sara swallows a dry sob – she stares at the broken pieces but she can't bring herself to clean it tonight. She collapses on the couch, dry-eyed and tired and empty, and watches as the room gets darker.

When the night comes, she finally shatters and cries.

o - o - o

Black clothes have never been a big part of Sara's wardrobe – they make her skin look pale and sick. Still, she owns a few pieces that she can combine with other clothes.

Today, she puts them on together; black skirt, black shoes, black jacket over a white shirt. She calls the cab that takes her to the Battersea bridge – it's not too far from her place and one of the least frequented bridges in London, which suits her perfectly. Sara tells the cabbie to wait for her a few streets away before walking to the bridge alone. It's clouded today, the sky is dark and the wind is messing up her hair.

She watches the river below her as the cars pass behind her back. She takes her time; soon there are goose bumps on her skin, but Sara knows she can't rush this. She remembers Neal's smile and thinks about their time together, about the life she wished for them that they would never have.

She reaches into her purse and pulls out the box with the engagement rings. _'Another time,'_ she thinks, and she can almost see Neal's grin and his strut and that ridiculous hat. Biting at her lip, Sara chuckles even as she wipes away a tear.

She tosses the rings in the river. Then she returns to the cab so she can go home, change and get back to work.


	2. Part II

**Part II**

 **One year later**

When they leave the café, they're still laughing.

"We should definitely do this again."

"Agreed," says Sara cheerfully.

Alice smiles back at her. "So, same time next month?"

Sara takes a small sip from her cup before she grins. "You know, why not. Just let me put it into my calendar."

She reaches into her handbook and pulls out the pen and the little book that she carries with her everywhere. She opens the book to today's page and feels a pang of pain as she notices tomorrow's date, but she just turns the pages until she comes to the next month. "So how about Thursday the 15th? Six o'clock again?"

"Let me see… Yes. Sounds perfect."

As the two of them part ways, Sara wonders at the strange ways of life. She and Alice had hit it off the moment they met, and even though Sara broke up with Alice's brother a few weeks after they started dating, the two of them were on the best way to becoming friends.

It's getting late, so Sara catches a cab to get to her apartment. She has a busy day tomorrow – testifying in court in the morning, a meeting after lunch, and a photography class in the evening. As she walks up the stairs to her apartment, she briefly finds herself missing her baton – she always loved the way it felt in her hand – and then her thoughts wander back to where they've been a lot this week, to New York and one Neal Caffrey.

It will be a year tomorrow.

Sara closes the door to her place, slips off her heels and makes herself comfortable in a chair with a book and a coffee cup.

Thinking about Neal still hurts, though it's a bit easier than it used to be. Sara hesitates, but then she sets the book aside and goes instead to get the box where she keeps her photos. It's a recent habit, she didn't do this before – she doesn't know what led her to buy a camera three months after Neal's death. But the thing about photographs is that they're honest, concrete; they show the world just the way it is, and yet everything depends on the angle, the light, the composition… Sara goes over the pictures; most of them are black and white, but there are a few colored shots too. A lot of them were taken in a rush, but some were slow and carefully done – she took her time with them.

They're not that great – and really, Sara never saw herself as an artist. Still, she thinks Neal would have liked them.

She is proud of what she has done with herself these past few months. After Emily's disappearance, she was drowning for months, and then she spent over a decade hiding behind a mask of almost arrogant confidence, living for her work and the immediate satisfaction of recovering an item or one-upping the rest of the world. Then Neal came into her life and showed her that it wasn't a bad thing to let people in once in a while.

Sometimes, Sara finds it ironic that the person who taught her to trust again was a con man and a professional liar. Except it's never been that easy to put labels on Neal, has it?

She shakes hear head and smiles.

Most of the photos are kept freely in the box, but there is a single thin envelope that contains pictures separated from the others. Opening it, Sara pulls out maybe ten, twelve pictures. With a shaky breath, she touches one of the photos. It's a winter scene of the bridge where she had said her goodbyes, the only picture she ever took of that place, one of the photos that she didn't just take in a fraction of a second. For a moment, Sara stares at the winter scene; then she moves on to the following pictures – several shots of the river, footprints in the snow, a lamp shining next to an empty bench…

Her heart clenches, and in a single moment of weakness Sara wishes she hadn't tossed away the rings. She had never seen Neal's body, and if there was hope…

But Peter himself said that Neal was gone, and he wouldn't have said that unless he was sure.

Sara puts the photos back into the envelope and then puts the whole box away. Then she picks up her book again and begins to read.

o - o - o

Three weeks later, Sara is returning home late in the night, straight from a Sterling&Bosch party – tired and a bit tipsy, but with a deep feeling of satisfaction.

The previous day finally saw the end of the trial that had been going on for the past month, when their thief's defense team unexpectedly changed their strategy under the weight of the evidence and relinquished the stolen painting in a hope for a more lenient sentence. With the painting successfully authenticated today, Sterling&Bosch stood to get back a substantial amount of money, not to mention that Sara finally got to close a case that had been a pain in her ass for over eight months. Even though she usually cultivates the image of a somewhat hardass boss, today has been the perfect day for celebration – and though Sara's head is still swirling a bit from the champagne, she grins when she thinks of how the painting felt in her hands, her first "failure" as boss of the London branch haunting her no longer. And then when she thought the day couldn't get any better, Mr. Bosch called her personally to congratulate her on their success in recovering the painting.

Days like this, it feels damn good to be Sara Ellis.

She climbs the stairs to her apartment and reaches for the keys, when she realizes the door is open. Still grinning, Sara enters her place, closes the door takes a few steps inside –

She freezes.

 _The door was open._

She's sure she locked it in the morning. Which means that –

 _Someone was inside. Maybe they're still there._

That thought sobers her up almost instantly.

Acting on instinct, Sara reaches into her purse before she realizes that she has neither her gun nor her baton. She curses Britain's paranoid weapon laws and instead quietly pulls out an umbrella from the nearby stand. She should call the police, and maybe the alcohol in her veins is still influencing her actions, because she might just be about to get herself killed – she presses her back against the wall as she carefully moves inside –

There is someone sitting in her armchair.

Sara's breath catches in her throat.

She tightens her grip on the umbrella. The intruder's head is tilted to the side. The darkness of the room is protecting her for now, but if he sees her –

She almost drops her weapon when the realization hits her. The way the man's head is tilted, the way his chest is rising and falling – he's sleeping.

What the fuck is going on?

Her curiosity winning over her fear, Sara quietly slips off her step-ins. She tiptoes to stand in front of him so she can get a look at his face –

" _Caffrey?"_

The umbrella falls to the floor with a loud clatter.

It can't be him. Except that then Neal stirs a bit before blinking slowly. He opens his eyes and looks up at her. Sara's heart is caught her throat. Frozen, she tries to say something, but she can't get her mouth to move.

She watches as Neal stands up. He's a bit thinner and there's a shiner on his face, but otherwise he looks almost the same as two years ago.

"Hey," he says quietly with a small smile.

" _Caffrey!"_

Sara wraps her arms around him. She pulls him close – _"I'm gonna kill you,"_ she says as she swallows a sob – she bites at her lip and tries to keep it together. He let her think he was dead – _'What the fuck, Neal'_ – but it doesn't matter because he's alive, he's here and she doesn't want to let go.

Sara laughs through tears of joy, even as she's _furious_ with him – because somehow he did it again, he conned them all and got away with it, and she was _stupid_ enough to fall for one of his scams.

"I thought you were dead, you bastard," she chokes out even as she desperately clutches at his shirt. Finally, Neal puts his arms around her, hesitant and unsure, and Sara is pissed off even more by his reluctance. Did he honestly think that she wouldn't be happy to see him, that she wouldn't be relieved?

She breathes in his scent; she buries her hand in Neal's hair and takes deep breaths, trying to calm down. What happened, and where the hell has he been?

At last, she pushes him away. "So what did you do, Caffrey? Why did you run this time?"

"I thought I had to," he says with a grimace.

He doesn't deny it. For a second, Sara had hoped (and dreaded) that there was another explanation; a kidnapping, a target on his back, _anything_ … but the truth is that Neal left, again. And once again, she wasn't part of his plan.

It really shouldn't hurt this bad.

"So you faked your death." She takes a deep breath. "I get it. Just tell me, why reach out to me when you were planning to disappear anyway?"

"It wasn't like that," says Neal earnestly. "I wanted – look, I didn't tell anyone. Not even Mozzie knew."

"You let _Mozzie and Peter_ think you were dead?" asks Sara in disbelief. "Neal… wow. I assume they know already?"

Neal grimaces. "If you want to punch me, go ahead."

"Looks like someone already did that," says Sara with a snort. She touches the bruise on his face and withdraws when he flinches. "Peter?"

"Moz, actually. Peter – well, he was angry too, but mostly happy to see me."

"You mean he was happy you were alive," says Sara knowingly. Neal gives her a crooked smile.

She still can't believe this is real.

She has always known that Neal was capable of many things, but this… she never saw this. She didn't know he had it in him to be this cruel.

"You were dead. You let us think that you were dead."

"I'm–"

"I feel like I don't even know you anymore," she says with a mirthless laugh.

Neal's expression is one of raw pain. "I missed all of you, more than you can imagine–"

"Don't," Sara snaps angrily, because somehow he caused this; he put them through this. He doesn't get to act like the wounded party.

"Why?" she asks at last.

Neal swallows. "Can we sit down?"

She picks up the umbrella, exchanges her high heels for a pair of flip-flops and motions for him to follow her into the kitchen.

o - o - o

"I didn't want the Panthers coming after you," Neal explains an hour later as he finishes his story.

"I didn't ask to be protected," says Sara sharply.

Neal grimaces. "Mozzie and Peter said the same thing." He pauses. "Kate was murdered because of me. Ellen died because I reached out to her. Siegel – my temporary handler – was gunned down on a street by my psychotic girlfriend."

"Neal–"

"Mozzie was shot and poisoned, Peter and El were kidnapped, June was threatened by Hagen, Peter was hurt in the car crash, and then he faced a murder charge; even Rachel… It's a pattern, Sara. People got hurt just by being close to me."

"So, let me guess, you decided to remove yourself from the equation," says Sara sarcastically.

"Ten years ago, Interpol had an informant in Germany who gave them Woodford's name. A few days later, his wife and kid got injured when their apartment mysteriously caught on fire…" Neal takes a deep breath. "I thought – I was so sure it was just a rumor. At first I wanted my freedom so badly that it didn't matter. But then I worked with the Panthers and I realized that I had stayed, if they'd realized that I was the one who betrayed them, they would have killed you. All of you."

"Neal, we're a pretty tough bunch–"

"Doesn't matter. You would have all been targets. A car crossing a street; a random street robbery; you, maybe a recovery gone wrong…"

"If you were so worried, you could have talked to Peter. You could have trusted the FBI, you know," Sara points out.

"And what if it wasn't enough, what if they came after you? I couldn't bear the thought of burying you–"

"So you just let us bury _you?_ " asks Sara incredulously.

"That's what Peter pointed out…" Neal runs his hands through his hair. "I thought I did what I had to do. I never said it wasn't selfish, Sara."

"Caffrey…" She pauses and struggles to find the words. "Even if you had to leave, you should have told us."

Neal shakes his head. "It wouldn't have stayed a secret. It's not a secret that I've faked my death before, and the Panthers would have been smart enough to notice that the timing was too convenient. It had to look good, it had to be convincing–"

"So you 'did what you had to' for the perfect con," says Sara bitterly.

Neal sighs. "It wasn't meant to be this long…"

"Oh?" Sara raises her eyebrows.

"I left a clue for Peter in my things. I thought he would find it, follow the lead as always. I had it all set up – an untraceable burner phone, my name on speed-dial–"

"And you thought that Peter would have the strength to go treasure-hunting when he was _grieving_ your _death_?" asks Sara incredulously.

"Yeah, not the best plan–"

"You _think_? Neal…" Sara breaks off before she says something nasty. "And the rest of us?" she asks instead.

The silence is an answer by itself.

"So you faked your death, which, conveniently, also helped you escape the FBI," says Sara at last.

"You still think I _wanted_ this?" asks Neal incredulously.

"Well, you certainly went to a lot of trouble to make it happen."

"You're right. I shouldn't have put you through this. I thought–"

"I'm glad you're okay, Caffrey," says Sara, cutting him off before they could delve even deeper into Neal's explanations.

Because as much as she is angry with him, as much as it hurts, she gets it.

She knows Neal and his tunnel vision. She also knows about losing people and being hurt and coping mechanisms; she understands masks and lies and being willing to do pretty much anything to spare yourself that pain again. For Neal it's always been running and crime; Sara, she has her baton, and she knows that at least a part of her sometimes bitchy persona is about keeping people at distance. It took her over a decade to sort out Emily, and God knows that Neal has more reason than most to be fucked up inside after Kate and Ellen and everything else.

So she gets it. She understands, even though she's still hurting from the consequences of his actions, even though she can barely imagine how Peter and Mozzie must have felt. She had left him for London; she knows she can forgive him; she'll probably forgive him soon enough. And she _is_ happy to know, she knows that the real joy will set in once the shock fades; she's glad he's back.

She stares at Neal, his face; she sees the regret in those blue eyes. And there's more too, an echo of something long lost, and she feels the same disquiet in her stomach, and a part of her longs to hold him, wants to touch him.

She'll never trust him again.

"Sara…"

"I thought about the two of us," she says. "Before, when we were calling each other; I was thinking about how we navigated around each other, how good we were together. I was waiting for your sentence to be over so I could talk to you."

Neal swallows. "I used to look up flight tickets to London. You were going to be my first stop once I was free–"

"I bought us rings," says Sara.

He turns white as a sheet. "What–"

"Engagement rings. I wanted to know if we could make it work for real. I was going to ask you to marry me."

"I – I didn't know–" Neal tries to recover as he reaches for her hand. "We can still–"

"I dumped them in the river. You can't find them. You can't bring them back."

She stabs Neal in the heart and watches as his world crumbles.

"Sara–"

"They're lost. You can't – it doesn't work like that. They're gone."

And he finally gets it. Sara thinks she should feel satisfied, but there's no joy in it; it's cold comfort at best. That doesn't make her words any less true.

"Look, you're a friend, and… I'm glad to know that you're okay." She repeats her earlier words, as if that could take some of the sting out of it.

She watches as Neal withdraws and puts on a mask. "Friends, then."

She hears the pain in his voice and it annoys her. "What, did you honestly expect me not to move on?"

He shakes his head. "No, Sara. No, I… I know I had no right to expect anything."

"Caffrey…"

He pulls out a small diary and scribbles something down, then tears out the page and lays it at the table. "My new number. Call me or text me if you need anything."

"Where are you going?" she asks as he stands up and heads for the door.

"Back to France."

"France?" asks Sara almost despite herself.

"I have a job there. I work in consulting security."

Sara raises an eyebrow. " _'Consulting'_ security?"

"Believe it or not, I'm actually on a vacation right now," replies Neal with a ghost of a smile.

 _Vacation._ "That's good," says Sara with a small smile of her own.

He nods. "Goodbye, Sara."

"Call me sometime, okay?" she says before he closes the door.

Neal gives her a last hollow smile.

And then he walks out, and she's standing there with her anger and grief as the hurt starts all over again.


	3. Part III

**Part III**

Neal never calls. One terrible night, Sara has to dig out the paper with his number to make sure it really exists and that it wasn't just a dream. She sends him a terrified text and blinks away angry tears when she gets a reply. Damn Neal Caffrey. Damn him for all of this.

Two days later, the first postcard arrives, and they keep coming steadily like clockwork, one card each week, never signed but always with a drawing tucked somewhere in the corner. Sara treasures the cards and reads over Neal's brief sentences; she replies with the occasional text and keeps the postcards in her sock drawer. She goes back to work and continues to shine; she takes photos and goes out with friends and chases bad guys even though she can't have her baton.

Life goes on.

As the weeks pass, the hurt starts dissipating and Sara finds herself looking forward to Neal's cards. They start texting each other regularly, and when she smiles secretly for the third time in a row after reading one of Neal's texts, Sara realizes how much she's missed his humor.

Things get better after that. She closes several big cases at Sterling&Bosch and receives an obscenely big bonus; in her free time, she begins looking for a bigger apartment that she can call her own. She keeps meeting with Alice and looks into language classes – she hesitates over French before picking advanced Spanish instead.

Everything is good until one Saturday afternoon three months later, when Neal knocks on the door of her apartment wearing just a thin coat over a wet dive skin; shaking with cold, his hair dripping with water, smelling of river and clutching something in his hand.

"Hello, Sara."

o - o - o

" _Caffrey?!"_ Sara exclaims in shock when she sees him.

Neal gives her a tired smile. "May I come in?"

She stares at him, taking in his chattering teeth and the dirt around his fingers. "Neal, what the – are you _crazy?!_ … Get in the shower before you catch pneumonia."

"You don't have to–"

"Don't be an idiot," says Sara with a sigh. "Do you have anything to change into?"

"Err, not really…? Thanks," he breathes out gratefully as she ushers him in. "Umm, the bathroom…?"

"Over there," says Sara. She takes his coat and points him to the right door.

"Thanks," says Neal again and closes the door behind himself. A few moments later, Sara hears the sound of the shower starting. She shakes her head and hangs the coat on the coat rack. Then she tries to figure if she has anything that could fit Neal in his current state of undress.

After rummaging through her stuff, she finds a large T-shirt that she occasionally wears around the apartment. Discarding all her jogging pants as too small, she then adds a pair of her pale yellow sleeping pants that might just be loose enough to fit.

Knocking on the bathroom door, she opens it and puts the clothes on the floor. "There are bath towels in the top drawer," she says loud enough to be heard over the sound of the shower.

 _What is he doing here anyway?_

Shaking her head, she makes them a kettle of tea and waits for Neal to come out.

Five minutes later, he finally emerges, still looking a bit ridiculous in the shirt and the too-small pants. Noticing the goosebumps on Neal's skin, Sara hands him a blanket before settling them both at the sofa by the small table in her living room. She pours them two mugs of tea and pushes one into Neal's direction. "Okay, Caffrey. Now spill."

Picking up the mug, Neal takes a careful sip before putting it down again. Then he opens his palm and places something on the table. Sara's heart stops.

It's the rings.

Their shine has dimmed a bit and there's a little dirt on them, but otherwise, they look exactly the same as the engagement rings she bought them two years ago.

She can't breathe.

Neal is looking at her with that hesitant smile, and Sara has never wanted to slap him as much as she does now. She stares at the accursed pieces of gold before stumbling to her feet. "You – how _dare_ you."

His smile disappears. "Sara–"

"A _year_ , Neal. And then you just waltz in here, flash a smile and you think you've fixed everything? How did you find them?"

He swallows. "I didn't."

" _What?_ Caffrey–"

"I _tried_. I found the right bridge; I spent two weeks searching for them; I couldn't…" He takes a deep breath. "I couldn't find them. They were gone."

"Gone?" echoes Sara, her anger momentarily fading. "Well, that's the sort of thing that happens when you disappear for a year."

Neal winces. "I think I got that, thank you."

Sara nods; he's finally heard her. "So what are these?" she asks at last, staring at the familiar rings on the table.

"I copied them?" says Neal with a hint of a question. "I thought – I figured – I couldn't find the originals, so I found out how they looked–"

"Yeah? How did you do that?"

"I have my sources," says Neal lightly. Sara glares at him. "Okay, I may have asked Mozzie to dig into your finances–"

"You did _what?!_ "

"- so I could track down the shop where you bought them," Neal finishes quickly. "The shopkeeper told me how they looked and I had him make a similar pair. After that, I had to age them–"

"I'm sorry, how does one age a ring?"

"Perfume sprays, bleach, scrubbing… I boiled them with some of the mud and grit from under the bridge, and… well, this sort of stuff. Then I put on the dive skin, took the rings, took a swim in the river–"

"–and came here," Sara finishes the story.

"Yeah."

Dressed in nothing but the dive skin and a coat, with only the rings and the knowledge that she might not let him in. And… Sara doesn't know what she's supposed to feel now.

Looking from the rings back at Neal, Sara sees his sadness and regret. "I really don't know what to say, Caffrey."

Neal nods. "I suppose I deserve that…"

"Look–"

"No, you were right. I didn't even realize how much I hurt you – _all_ of you – before you pointed it out. And this," he points at the rings, "I know it's not enough. I know I can't take it back. And I'm sorry for all I put you through, but… I guess it's the best I've got."

Silence.

In the end, Neal stands up. "Anyway, thanks for the tea. I'll see myself out…"

"You still have my clothes," Sara points out when she finds her voice.

Neal looks down at the pajama bottoms. "Right. I can send them back to you…"

"You said Mozzie helped you with this?" asks Sara curiously.

Neal cracks a smile. "We're talking again. Though he probably hoped that you'd toss me out in the coat and swim suit…"

"Of course," says Sara, cracking a smile of her own. She remembers Mozzie and wonders how he is doing, suddenly missing the little man and remembering the other things that Neal brought into her life.

Caffrey is standing there in her T-shirt and the tight yellow sleeping pants that don't even reach his ankles; uncertain, barefoot and vulnerable. And the thing is, Sara knows that she is being manipulated, she knows how he planned all this, and yet…

"You haven't finished your tea," she says and points to his mug.

Neal hesitates. "You sure? I can go if you want…"

Honestly? No, she's not sure of anything, and especially not this. "Finish the damn tea," she says, more roughly than she intended.

"Okay."

Sara watches him curl back on the sofa, watches as Neal's fingers hesitate next to the rings on the table when he picks up his mug again, watches as he sips his tea and plays with the edge of the blanket.

"You forged the rings," she says suddenly.

Neal looks startled. "That's not – I didn't–"

"But you did. You figured out how they looked, you aged them – you forged them, Caffrey."

And then Sara has to look away to hide her budding smile.

Because he forged them. Neal forged the rings – he forged the engagement rings that she dropped from the bridge. It's so ridiculous, so stupidly _Caffrey_ that she wants to laugh. Of course Neal would do this – he was the guy who tried to impress his ex-girlfriend by committing crimes and stealing the Raphael. Sara has to grin despite herself, even though a part of her still wants to slap Neal for what he's done.

When he faked his death, he broke them; he might just as well have taken a sledgehammer to their relationship. And yet Sara recognizes that some of the cracks were her own doing; when she left him for London; when she didn't let him in, suspecting (rightly) that he would hurt her; when she let him deal with Pratt, Hagen and everything else all alone.

She takes a deep breath before she turns around to face him. "You're right, you hurt me… You know how they say that the third time is the charm? This is actually the fourth time we've left each other."

"If you want to, I'm not above cheating fate," says Neal with a small smile before he turns serious. "I'm sorry, Sara. Look, if you want me to leave…" He hesitates before pointing at the table. "Do you want to keep these?"

The rings are still there. For a moment, it's almost tempting, but then Sara shakes her head. "No, you should keep them."

She sees as Neal nods in acceptance. "Okay."

She knows then that he will walk out of the door and they will never speak about this again. They will be friends, there will be postcards and texts and Christmas wishes, and Neal will never bring it up again because he'll respect her wishes and let her go.

"You know, you could ask me out to a dinner," says Sara before Neal collects his coat.

He stills. "Dinner?"

She bites her lip. "What if I'm not above cheating fate? I always liked skirting the line between the black and white…"

o - o - o

Two days later, they're at Neal's place, talking, laughing in between awkward pauses and eating spaghetti.

When Neal goes to get them more wine, Sara contemplates her decision. Even under the best of circumstances, this would be complicated. She lives in London, Neal lives in Paris… Maybe she made a mistake. Or maybe they can fix themselves; rebuild themselves better than they once were. Either way, Sara is confident enough in herself to take that risk.

 _To another time, another us…_

She can't trust Neal to never hurt her or even to never leave again, but she can trust him to be Neal. And maybe she doesn't need him to be anyone else; maybe this, what they have, is enough.

It's a con, but it's also real, so Sara takes a leap of faith and dares to reach for the sky.

 **THE END**


End file.
